you would not have had it and not a series of civil rights pieces of sieve legislation pass given the way this senate operates. >> it's about leadership. david? >> i agree. >> on both sides of pennsylvania avenue -- >> we have had arguments on this show before about barack obama. i'm disappointed in him. i think he wasn't strong enough. i agree with, sadly, with maureen's column. >> i go back to what an ambassador from the middle east told me in year one about president obama. i thought he was extraordinarily moving at the state of the union. but said from the mistake they make, richard, i'm sure you heard this a lot. mistake they make at the white house in twine they blebelieve speech is the end instead of the speech the mean to get to the end. you start there. but you have to do the lyndon johnson, the george w. bush which is -- >> you think they are. the most salient fact in maureen's column is the person they are sending up to the hill is practically invisible. they think they are bending ears and doing politics but it's so ineffectual the result is what the result was. >> i've al